National Marrow Donor Program

In light of a recent news story I came across about a little boy in Manhattan who was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of Leukemia, and who is currently looking for a matching bone marrow donor, I came across the National Marrow Donor Program. Now we all know how important it can be to people with cancer and leukemia to find a matching bone marrow donor in order to literally save their lives. And most people are either too afraid of the pain to even see if they are a potential match, or they have no way of going about finding out if they are. This is where the registry comes in. Now I had no idea this existed or even how easy it was. What you do is, is you sign up for the registry and then they send you a little kit with stuff to swab your cheek with, and then you send the sample back. They keep your results in a data base and when a doctor/patients does a search for particular bone marrow and they find a match in the registry, you then have the chance to save someone's life. Now there is a fee for filing (which is tax deductible and can be paid in portions...and it's really not that much) but that is only because this registry needs funds to keep going. They keep your data on file until you are 60 years old. There are some other guidelines that you might want to check out if interested. I honestly think this is such an important thing that everyone needs to do. I know you hear horror stories about the pain of marrow donation, but just think; a couple weeks of discomfort to save someone's (possibly a child's) life. If you or your family member were sick wouldn't you want there to be plenty of available donors around to help you out? The least you can do is check the site out. Me and my husband are definitely going to be doing it!